Venture capital activity in AdTech reached $514 million in the last month across eleven funding rounds, signaling a strong foundation for 2016 as VCs begin to click open their purses.The list of investments follows.

My tendency is to caution VCs on the viability of many of the business models represented here. As I click on the links to the funded sites, I find myself awash in homogenized, dull, often boring, sometimes confusing presentations of their offerings.If a site is the face of its business, VCs need to take a hard look at their investments in businesses they are not qualified to vet.

Blippar has raised $54 million in a Series D funding led by Khazanah Nasional Berhad with participation from existing investors.

ZoomData has raised $25 million in a Series C round led by Goldman Sachs with participation from other investors.

Qubit has raised $40 million i a Series C funding led by Goldman Sachs with participation from other investors.

SproutSocial has raised $42 million in a Series C round led by Goldman Sachs with participation from other investors.

DataRobot has raised $33 million in a Series B funding led by New Enterprise Associates with participation from other investors.

Fuze has raised $112 million in a Series E round from Summit Partners.

Geofeedia has raised $17 million in a Series B funding led by Silversmith Capital Partners with participation from existing investors.

Hired has raised $40 million in a Series C round led by Lumia Capital with participation from other investors.

Snagajob has raised $100 million in a Series D funding led by Rho Acceleration with participation from other investors.

Curalate has raised $27.5 million in a Series C round led by New Enterprise Associates with participation from other investors.

YourMechanic has raised $24 million in a Series B funding led by SoftBank Capital with participation from other investors.

What follows is not only a security breach by hackers, it's a breach of faith and what I would consider negligence by the company and investigators that allowed this to go on for almost four months without alerting those affected.

21st Century Oncology, based in Fort
Myers, Fla., operates 145 cancer treatment centers in the United States and 36
in Latin America.

The company, 21st Century Oncology
Holdings is warning 2.2 million patients that health data and Social Security
numbers were stolen from its computer network.

The breach, which was revealed on
March 4, occurred last November and included the theft of patient names,
Social Security numbers, physicians’ names, diagnoses and treatment
information, and insurance information.

21st Century Oncology said it had to
delay notifying patients until after an FBI investigation concluded in
November. According to the hospital, intruders gained access to its computer
network in October.

In a statement, 21st Century
Oncology said, there is no indication patients’ actual medical records were
accessed. “Upon learning of the intrusion, we immediately hired a leading
forensics firm to support our investigation, assess our systems and bolster
security,” said the hospital in a statement.

James Chappell, Digital Shadows’ CTO
and co-founder, said hackers were most likely targeting personal identifiable
information for resale on black markets. “The circumstances in these patients’
lives were already pretty tough,” Chappell said. “I’m surprised 21st Century Oncology
weren’t better stewards of their patients’ data given their circumstances.”

“21st Century Oncology’s response really
misses the mark,” said Ted Harrington, executive partner with Independent
Security Evaluators, in an email interview. “They note in their statement that
no medical records were lost. But patient names, Social Security numbers and
other data were. These are some of the most important aspects of the medical
record.”

21st Century Oncology is one of
several hospitals have been increasingly targeted by criminals. Last month, the
Los Angeles-based Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center paid $17,000 in Bit-Coin to attackers that
locked down access to the hospital’s electronic medical records system and
other computer systems using crypto-ransomware.

Independent Security Evaluators
concludes that hospitals desperately need to shore up their cyber defenses and
are vulnerable to attack.

WHEN THE FISH GO FISHINGA good way to measure the health of the ad industry is to track the number of Mergers and Acquisitions taking place.

The good folks at GM Ryan International issue a monthly round up of M&A activity in the Media, Ad-Tech and ad world. There were twenty-four acquisitions in March, pointing to healthy industry activity.

Although low to mid-market M&A activity could be losing a bit of steam this year, as cheap bank financing tightens dictated by fed activity, private equity firms appear to be sitting on capital they raised in the last two years.

SOCIAL "NOT SO" SECURITYThe Internal Revenue Service today issued an alert to payroll and
human resources professionals to beware of an emerging phishing email
scheme that purports to be from company executives and requests personal
information on employees.The IRS has learned this scheme — part of the surge in phishing
emails seen this year — already has claimed several victims as payroll
and human resources offices mistakenly email payroll data including
Forms W-2 that contain Social Security numbers and other personally
identifiable information to cybercriminals posing as company executives.

“This is a new twist on an old scheme using the cover of the tax
season and W-2 filings to try tricking people into sharing personal
data. Now the criminals are focusing their schemes on company payroll
departments,” said IRS Commissioner John Koskinen.

“If your CEO appears
to be emailing you for a list of company employees, check it out before
you respond. Everyone has a responsibility to remain diligent about
confirming the identity of people requesting personal information about
employees.”

IRS Criminal Investigation already is reviewing several cases in
which people have been tricked into sharing SSNs with what turned out to
be cybercriminals. Criminals using personal information stolen
elsewhere seek to monetize data, including by filing fraudulent tax
returns for refunds.

This phishing variation is known as a “spoofing” email. It will
contain, for example, the actual name of the company chief executive
officer. In this variation, the “CEO” sends an email to a company
payroll office employee and requests a list of employees and information
including SSNs.

The following are some of the details contained in the e-mails:

Kindly send me the individual 2015 W-2 (PDF) and earnings summary of all W-2 of our company staff for a quick review.

Can you send me the updated list of employees with full details
(Name, Social Security Number, Date of Birth, Home Address, Salary).

I want you to send me the list of W-2 copy of
employees wage and tax statement for 2015, I need them in PDF file type,
you can send it as an attachment. Kindly prepare the lists and email
them to me asap.

The IRS recently renewed a wider consumer alert
for e-mail schemes after seeing an approximate 400 percent surge in
phishing and malware incidents so far this tax season and other reports
of scams targeting others in a wider tax community.

The IRS, state tax agencies and tax industry are engaged in a public
awareness campaign — Taxes. Security. Together. — to encourage everyone
to do more to protect personal, financial and tax data. See IRS.gov/taxessecuritytogether or Publication 4524 for additional steps you can take to protect yourself.